Ranma: Senshi of the Moon Chapter 2

1/2 Moon
A Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon Crossover Fan Fiction
By Michael A. Ivins

What was that? You say I don't own Ranma or Sailor Moon? Are you sure?
Oh, all right! If you insist! I'm just a fanfic writer playing around with other people's characters. There, I said it! Are you happy?

Chapter 2
Taking Care of Feline Problems

The short, red haired girl stopped on the sidewalk in front of a modest home. It was two stories and mostly different from the other houses on the block only in the color of the paint and details of the yard.

The girl was breathing hard from running full out. She scanned the sidewalk in the direction she had come from. There was no sign of pursuit either on the sidewalk or the street. She couldn't see anything in the trees or shrubs.

The busty redhead took in a deep breath and let it out in a big sigh. She said, "I guess I lost it. Damn fur-ball! Why can't they just leave me alone?"

As the girl went toward the door of the house, a small, black furred head poked its way around the corner and took note of which house the girl went to. When she was sure the girl couldn't see her, A smallish black cat with a peculiar crescent moon symbol on her forehead raced after her target. Damn, but that girl was fast! If the house she had been running to had been just one block farther, the cat would have lost her.

Considering the expression of sheer terror on the girl's face when she had run, the cat felt that it might be wise to scout out the situation before trying to confront the redhead again. If this girl was who the cat believed her to be, it would be hard to fathom why she might be afraid of cats.

Inside the house the girl walked into the kitchen, panting a little. She said, "I'm home. How was your day, Mom?"

"My day went well enough," the older woman answered. "What happened to you? You are out breath."

"The usual sort of craziness, I guess," the girl replied. "And I thought moving here was going to get me away from all of that."

"Did one of the fiancées find you?" the older woman asked with a worried expression.

"Nah, not one of them." Ranma clarified, "I said the same sort of craziness, not the exact same stuff. In this case when I was passing the park there was some kind of monster attacking people. It seemed to have knocked them out. From what I could read of their ki, I got the idea that it had drained some of their life energies."

"How horrible!" Nodoka exclaimed. "But if the creature could drain their life energies, how could you fight it? Aren't most of your attacks making use of that same energy?"

"Most, but not all," the redhead explained. "Some of Pop's sealed techniques worked. The Yama Senken uses ki to create the vacuum blades, but the blades themselves are voids in the air. I was able to use them to kill the monster."

Her expression troubled, the girl said, "When I used a vacuum blade to cut the monster in half, it turned to dust. It was almost like it was some kind of alien creature or magic monster that the person who sent it didn't want to leave any body for examination."

"It sounds horrible."

"Nah, that wasn't the horrible part," Ranma said. "Right after I got done with the monster, one of those little... furry things stepped out of the bushes and just stood there, staring at me for a minute."

Furry thing? "Oh, do you mean a cat?" the mother queried.

The girl shuddered and said, "Yeah! Well I took off running to try and get away, but the damn thing ran after me. It was damn fast too and was able to keep up for most of the way. I only lost it when I got to our neighborhood."

The older woman patted her daughter on the back and said, "My poor Ranma. Your father really messed you up. Some day we are going to have to get you to a psychiatrist to see if there is anything they can do to get you over your fear."

With a sad expression, the girl said, "I don't know if a shrink can help."

Nodoka took the kettle she now always kept on low heat for when Ranma came home and handed it to her daughter. The girl poured some of the warm water over her head.

A few minutes earlier the cat jumped to a window that looked into the kitchen. From there she was able to see what happened and could overhear the conversation. She witnessed an almost unbelievable sight. The red haired girl she had been following spoke to an auburn haired woman who looked enough like the teenager that she had to be the girl's mother. That woman handed a kettle to the girl who poured some of the water on her head.

That action caused a change. The girl grew taller, more angular and more muscular in appearance. In addition the hair went from red to black and it was pretty clear that the black haired person was male. What sort of magic was this and how had a Senshi fallen victim to it?

Well, it didn't matter how it happened. The important thing was that the person she had followed was a girl at least part of the time and she had the crescent moon symbol on her forehead. That meant that the person had to be Sailor Moon, at least when she was female. From what she knew of Senshi magic, that would likely make him the Lunar Knight when male.

The cat watched as the boy gave his mother a hug and left the kitchen. He said he was going to work on his homework assignments while the woman prepared supper. The cat listened to the boy's movement through the house and finally heard him go to a room on the second floor. That likely had to be his bedroom.

Looking around, the cat was able to spot a tree that grew near the house. The branches of the tree were not stout enough to support a human burglar, but it would be quite adequate for the cat to get herself to the second story window.

At her landing with soft paws on the windowsill, the boy started and halfway turned his head toward the window without actually looking at it. He muttered, "Stupid tree! Gonna have to trim it back so it doesn't scratch the side of the house every time the wind blows."

The black furred feline breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently the boy, Ranma was used to hearing small noises from the tree branches brushing up against the house. As the cat cautiously pushed her head through the curtains and peered into the room she could see the boy sitting cross-legged on the bed. His school books were in front of him but none were open. The boy appeared to be brooding.

Pulling herself back behind the curtain, the black cat debated with herself what to do. Finally she decided.

Seated on the bed, Ranma knew he should be doing his homework. That math assignment wasn't going to do itself. Now that he didn't have the fiancées, rivals and others bothering him all the time he was actually able to get enough sleep that he could stay awake in class. It had worked wonders and he (well, she) was able to learn the material the teacher was trying to impart.

The problem was that the monster in the park had worried him more than he had let his mother know. If it was simply an isolated incident, that was one thing, but what if there were more of them out there, somewhere? If there were more of them, then there was no way he could stay out of it, the way his life went.

Suddenly from behind him a woman's voice spoke. "Ranma. Don't be alarmed and please don't turn around."

In spite of the request the boy was tempted to look anyway. If this were an enemy they could have attacked already, so he was willing to cut the intruder some slack. "Who are you and how do you know my name? I don't recognize your voice."

"My name is Luna," said the voice. "You saw me in the park after you fought the monster. As for how I know your name, I was at the window of the kitchen and I overheard your mother call you by that name."

"Eavesdropping?" the boy observed. Then he thought back to the people he had seen at the park. "I didn't see any women at the park. At least none that were conscious. You weren't one of the people the monster drained, are you?"

"No, I am not one of them," the voice announced.

Ranma felt the cold hand of fear clutch at his heart as he realized what else he had seen in the park. He was able to control the fear but only because he couldn't actually see a small fuzzy body and the voice didn't seem to have any feline overtones. He finally summoned up enough presence of mind to say, "So you're telling me that you are the cat I saw, a talking cat?"

"Maybe this will put your mind a little more at ease," the voice offered. "I am not a cat such as you know of them. In truth I am an alien to your world and I just look like a cat. I am from a planet called Mau."

"An alien?" The boy was silent to consider that for a moment. Finally he said, "Well, I guess the way my life goes, aliens were bound to come into it sooner or later. Why did you follow me? What do you want from me?"

The cat explained, "The type of monster you fought in the park is called a youma. It was sent out to gather human life energy by a magical dark kingdom that is called the Negaverse. While you were fighting it, a symbol showed up on your forehead and glowed. The symbol was that of a crescent moon."

The pigtailed boy placed two fingers from his right hand on his forehead and rubbed lightly. He couldn't feel anything odd. "Ok, let's say that I believe you saw something on my face. What's it supposed to mean?"

The cat frowned but pressed ahead. "What I am going to tell you will sound like a fairy tale, but please listen."

She paused to collect her thoughts and then began, "Twenty thousand years ago or more, I'm not really sure exactly how long ago it was, there was a kingdom that existed on the earth, the moon and all of the planets."

"Planets?" Ranma was listening and wasn't going to voice his skepticism, but did want clarification on points of the story.

The cat continued, "Through the use of a combination of magic and technology the people of the Silver Millennium created habitable biospheres on all of the planets of the Solar system as well as many of the moons. The capital of the system was the Moon of Earth. It had a palace beside what it now called the Sea of Serenity that Queen Serenity the 9th ruled."

"So was the Sea of Serenity named after queen?" Ranma wondered.

"I don't know, but I suspect it was so," Luna responded. "The queen selected one special woman from each planet to be linked to that world's power. They were called the Sailor Senshi because of the sailor style collar on their uniforms. The only exception I know of was Earth. I'm not sure if that was because the Earth was not a unified planet. Of all the planets in the system, Earth was the only one that had separate nations that existed on it."

"Ok," the boy responded. "What did these Senshi do?"

"They were soldiers that protected their worlds and the Queen as well," the cat replied. "But on Earth one woman who was a member of the nobility of one of the nations there became ambitious. She allied herself with forces that seemed to come, not from another world of the galaxy but from some alternate dimension. We called it the Negaverse."

Ranma prompted, "What happened?"

"The woman named Beryl proclaimed herself to be a queen and used the youma, demons she had summoned, to attack the other worlds," Luna continued. "There was a terrible war and in the fighting the artificially maintained biospheres on the other planets were destroyed and everyone died. Only the Earth survived because its habitat was natural and not maintained by magic or technology. The Senshi were overwhelmed."

"In a desperate bid to salvage what she could, Queen Serenity used the last of her power to seal away the forces of the Negaverse into a pocket universe," the voice related. "Well I suppose it would be more accurate to say that she used nearly the last of her power. She put myself and at least one other Mau advisor that I know of into stasis capsules that were launched to Earth. The souls of the Senshi were sent forward in time to be reincarnated in a time when the forces of the Negaverse would finally start to break free from their prison to menace the world again."

"And if I fought a youma from this Negaverse place, then I guess it means this Beryl person and her people are starting to break loose from their prison," Ranma surmised. "That must also mean that the Senshi have been reborn. That still doesn't explain what you want with me."

The cat let out a sigh. "The crescent moon symbol I saw glowing on your forehead proves that you are the reincarnated Senshi of the Moon."

"What?" Ranma almost turned to look at the cat but stopped himself. "You're crazy! If that were true I'd have been born a girl. Even if I have a curse to turn into a girl, I was born male and have been a guy most of my life."

"How did you come by this 'curse?'" the furry creature wanted to know.

The boy gave a highly condensed account of the visit to Jusenkyo. He spoke of the many pools, the Guide and the sparring match against his father on the poles. He spoke of how he felt when coming out of the spring.

Finally he said, "It was pure chance that I landed in that pool. From what I've heard there are a lot more springs that turn people into animals than humans. I was just as likely to have turned into a dog, a rat or horse. Those were some of the other springs near the one I fell into."

The cat took that in for a moment before replying, "So if we were just talking laws of chance, it would have been far more likely for you to get a cursed form of an animal instead of a human."

"That's what I said," Ranma said a little grumpily.

"Destiny has a way of doing things like that sometimes," Luna said. "I firmly believe that you were meant to be a girl and to take up the mantle of Sailor Moon, warrior for love and justice. As the leader of the Sailor Senshi it would be your job to find the rest of the Senshi and to find the Moon Princess."

"Love and justice?" The boy's tone was evident with disgust. "It figures it would be something girly like that."

"What's wrong with girly?" the cat demanded with some asperity.

"Nothing, if I was born as a girl," Ranma fired back. "But I was born a boy and raised by one of the most macho, misogynistic men on the face of the planet. His goal was to make me a 'man among men,' (whatever that's supposed to mean.)"

Falling silent for a moment, Ranma considered what he had been told. Finally he asked, "So, does a 'warrior for love and justice' still get to kick ass?"

"Well, that is part of what being a warrior is about," the little black cat conceded. "You would get to fight against terrible evil, not just for love and justice, but for the safety and survival of everyone on the earth."

Fight for the safety and survival of everyone? Now it was starting to sound more like something Ranma could really get into. He nodded and asked, "So if the bad guys win, what's their plan. Are they going to conquer the earth or just wipe out everyone?"

The furry lurker behind the curtain sighed and said, "At the beginning of the conflict I would have believed that conquest was the goal. After what Beryl's forces did to the other planets though, I think extermination might have been her objective. I can't say that I understand it, though. Why would anyone want to rule over dead planets?"

Shaking his head now, Ranma said, "Killed or conquered, it's just different kinds of bad. At least with conquest, there's a chance of rebellion and freedom later. I'd tell you to sign me up right now, but I see a problem."

"What problem?"

"If I'm doing this Sailor thingy, I'll have to work with you, won't I?" the boy pressed.

Catching the hint, Luna asked, "Did you suffer some kind of trauma related to cats when you were a child?" the cat probed.

"You could say that," he allowed. He launched into a brief description of the cat fist training along with the fact that Genma hadn't read the warning at the end until after the damage was done.

"Your own father did that to you, and you let him live?" She was astonished.

"The man is not evil, just careless and impatient," Ranma stated. "If you were to ask him about it now he'd say something like, 'who reads the whole manual anyway?' He'd also say something about how weak I am that I would fear something that small and harmless looking."

"I hope you are free of his influence now," the cat said fervently.

"Yeah, my mom divorced him and used the nekoken training as the grounds to get custody of me," the boy answered. "That still doesn't answer the question of how I'm going to work with you if I can't stand to even look at you."

The voice from behind him sounded uncertain, "There is a procedure, a technique I guess you could call it, I could try."

"What kind of technique?" Ranma wanted to know.

"A mind meld," said the cat. "I can probe your thoughts and try to correct the damage done by the nekoken training."

"Mind meld?" Where had he heard that term before? Oh, right! Ami had the complete original Star Trek series on DVD. Ranma had viewed a few episodes with her between studies. "Do you mean like that Spock guy in that American TV show?"

"It's a similar idea," she admitted. "Would you be willing to try it?"

"Are you sure it's safe?"

"Reasonably sure," the cat hedged.

"Look, if the possible result would be to put me in the nekoken state permanently, then I'd have to bow out," he told her. "Other than the c-c-cats themselves, one of my greatest fears is that I'll wake up from the blackout to find out that I've seriously hurt or even killed someone. If I was permanently in the Nekoken state, I'd be effectively dead."

"No, you won't be stuck in the cat-fist state," Luna promised. "The worst that could happen is that you would be no worse off than you are now."

"Ok, I'll give it a shot," the boy finally decided. "What do I have to do?"

"It would be best for you to lie down and close your eyes," instructed the furry visitor.

Before Ranma could comply with the directions, Nodoka's voice called out, "Ranma, dinner's ready."

Turning his head to the door Ranma nodded. He got up from the bed and said, "Ok, Luna. Could we do this after dinner?"

"I see no problem in that," the feline responded. "Um... could you bring me something from your meal? I've sort of been living on the streets and meals are somewhat irregular." Her pride wouldn't let her mention eating out of garbage cans.

"Sure, no problem," the boy said. "From the smell I'm pretty sure that she made something with fish. Can you eat rice?"

"Actually I can eat pretty much anything you can eat," the cat assured. "Although I am quite partial to fish, when I can get it."

"Ok."

The boy exited the room, and closed the door behind him. Luna poked her head out from the curtains and then jumped to the bed and from there to the floor. She decided the best place to wait would be under the bed. When she got there she was surprised at how clean it was. In fact the whole room was surprisingly tidy for the dwelling of a teenaged boy.

When Ranma got to the kitchen his mother asked, "Were you listening to the radio in your room? I though I heard voices."

"Yeah," Ranma agreed. "The radio." He didn't want to try and say more because he knew that he couldn't tell a lie convincingly. He ate as his mother had insisted. He still ate quickly, but more slowly than in the past so he did not offend his mother's sense of propriety.

When he finished, he told his mother, "I'm going to work on a meditation technique. I think I may have figured out a way to get over the nekoken."

"That would be wonderful if it works," Nodoka stated. "So you won't be practicing in the yard tonight?"

"Not tonight," the boy agreed. "None of the girls are coming over, so I've got the evening free."

"Good luck with your meditation."

"Thanks Mom," he said as he headed to his room.

When he got into the room he quietly called out, "Luna, where are you?"

"Under the bed," came the voice. Ranma nodded and slid the plate he had snuck out of the dining room under the bed. "Here you go. Some fish, rice and vegetables. I hope there's enough."

"It's fine," was the brief answer. A few minutes later the empty plate slid out, pushed by a black furred paw.

Ranma picked up the plate and set it on his desk to take downstairs later. "Ok." He said as walked to the bed to lie down. When he was comfortably settled he said, "I'm ready when you are."

He could feel the slight impact of a small body landing on the bed. At the thought of a talking cat on the same bad as him, he reached for the calm of the Soul of Ice. When he was calm he went into a meditative state.

Luna looked at the boy laying in front of her. After all of the memory loss she had suffered from the suspension in the stasis pod, she just hoped that she remembered how to do this.

She extended her mind and touched his. Even if she couldn't remember how to change her body into a humanoid form, she was still able to adopt that form in her mind. That is what Ranma saw in his mind.

Together they explored the landscape of his mind. They found the memories of the pit. When she viewed the memory, Luna commented on how she would like to conduct some tests on a certain panda's level of pain tolerance.

With a snort, Ranma replied, "You're in good company. Just about everybody who hears the story of the N-Nekoken training wants to do something painful to Genma."

Luna pointed out, "You should know that not all cats are like that. Even the ones in the pit weren't. When they were that hungry there was little left of them but wild beasts. They weren't attacking you to hurt you; they were just trying to get the food that was tied to you."

"I know that in my head," they boy responded. "But I don't think that understanding has reached my heart yet."

After some searching they were able to find some happy cat related memories. A 3 year old Ranma played with a kitten. There were other memories. In fact when Ranma was a small child he had loved cats.

Then she saw it. There was a presence, a personality that was distilled from the spirits of the cats which had been in the pit. In the landscape of Ranma's mind it looked like a tabby housecat the size of lion. The memories Luna had scanned had shown that Genma had intended the training technique to create a berserk warrior of incredible ferocity. What he got was basically a playful kitten that might fight to protect itself if threatened, but was otherwise no danger.

The moon cat "talked" to the spirit and found out that it considered itself Ranma's guardian. It was there to protect him and when the fear became too great and cause his mind to retreat, it would take over his body.

The mental projection of the Mau advisor felt sadness for what she must do. She told the cat spirit that, by keeping itself separate from the psyche of its host, it was perpetuating the fear. Only by sacrificing itself, merging with the host, would the spirit achieve its true purpose.

The cat spirit looked angry for a moment. It was being asked to give up its existence as an individual. But then it looked around itself. The soul of its host lay around it and the spirit could read the true nature of the being that it guarded. Here was someone who truly loved cats, and the training had turned that love to fear.

The choice was clear. The spirit froze in place and suddenly seemed to expand. At the same time as it grew larger, it became more ethereal until it turned into a mist that dispersed into the dreamscape of Ranma's mind.

With that dispersal the calm landscape seemed to shift and flow. When things settled down the "sky" had changed into a blue that could not exist in the real world. A rocky mound seemed to grow out of the ground and in the side facing Ranma and Luna there was an opening that seemed to be blocked by a glowing transparent barrier.

Through the barrier she could see a whole host of memories that looked entirely different from the ones she had been looking at. She suddenly jumped to the barrier to look closer at one of the images.

In past times when performing mind melds, Luna had not seen anything like this before. From some of the flashing images, she could see that the memories on the other side of the barrier had to be images from the past and the Moon Kingdom. She could see the Moon Palace, the queen, and...

"Is that me?" She put a hand out to the barrier and pressed on it. Suddenly the barrier ruptured and there was what seemed to be a flash of light and Luna was out of Ranma's mind and back in her own body.

Author's Note: When I first posted the second chapter of RSM on my blog, one comment I got was a complaint about how long it was. What I have done is to actually expand parts of what I had written before and then divided that into two separate chapters.